As I recall, you could always restore from a reel other than reel 1,
without any special parameters.  Restore would read the directory and
ask for a previous reel if the file you wanted started before the current
reel.  In fact, the recommended way to locate a file on a multiple-reel
backup for which you didn't have a listing was to start with the last reel
and work forward.  The reason was that if you started with the first reel,
the only way it could tell if the file was on that reel was to read through
the whole reel.  By reading them in reverse order, it could determine the
location by reading only the directory.

>>> Tracy Johnson <[log in to unmask]> 05/27/98 03:08pm >>>
Didn't there used to be a parameter on MPE/V machines, so that if you
wanted to do a restore starting from reel 2, you could ignore the fact
that you must start from reel 1?